The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen on Friday filed a request to intervene in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s review of Holtec International’s license application for a facility in southeastern New Mexico for storage of spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors.
Intervention would formalize the organization’s role in the proceeding. In announcing the filing, Public Citizen made clear it intends to argue against approval of the license for the consolidated interim spent fuel storage installation between the cities of Hobbs and Carlsbad.
“There are major risks in the proposed transportation of this high-level and dangerous radioactive waste including cask leaks, terrorist actions in urban areas, not to mention the inadequacy and many safety concerns with our transportation system,” Lon Burnam, a former Texas state lawmaker who has joined the intervention, said in a press release.
Burman lives about 1 mile from a train line that would be used to transport some of the spent fuel, the Washington, D.C.-based organization said. The group said Holtec has not seriously addressed the danger of an accident involving highly radioactive material while it is being moved around the country. A mishap involving a single railcar could create the threat of radiation exposure to all residents within 50 miles, according to the press release.
Public Citizen also faulted the NRC for failing to “adequately account for local concerns.”
Holtec in March 2017 filed its application for a facility with an initial capacity for underground storage of 8,680 metric tons of spent fuel. But that could ultimately grow to well over 100,000 metric tons. With regulatory approval, the New Jersey-based energy technology company hopes to open the facility in 2022.
Holtec and its supporters have emphasized both the safety of the storage casks and the economic benefits from the project. On its website, Holtec says its “canisters are designed, qualified, and tested to survive and prevent the release of radioactive material under the most adverse accident scenarios postulated by NRC regulations for both storage and transportation.”
